JFK Jr.’s closest friends remember him fondly in a new documentary.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES SHARE RARE DETAILS OF HIS LIFE IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

People often tell me I could be a great man,” John F. Kennedy Jr. once said. “I’d rather be a good man.” Now a new documentary, I Am JFK Jr., features candid interviews with people close to him recalling the ways he lived up to his own expectations. “It’s the story everybody knows of the son who has grown up in the shadow of greatness,” says Derik Murray, co-director of the film, which airs Aug. 1 on Spike. “But we didn’t know him.”

John’s friends — Robert De Niro, Cindy Crawford, college pals like journalist Christiane Amanpour — recall how normal he was, even though, says CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “He was the closest thing we had to a crown prince.” He met Robert at the gym and rode his bike around New York City. “For me, it was like, he’s a hot New York bachelor,” says Cindy.

He was, until he fell for Ralph Lauren publicist Carolyn Bessette. “John was smitten from the first time they met,” recalls one friend. When they pulled off a surprise wedding in 1996, the public was shocked. And as Christiane reveals, “I told him, ‘You know, John, if I have a breaking news emergency, I’m not going to be able to come.’ And he said, ‘Kissy, if you don’t come, I’m going to have a breaking friend emergency!’ ”

After the wedding, Carolyn struggled. “She could never have anticipated the intensity” of the media scrutiny, explains Cuomo, while Rosemarie Terenzio, his chief of staff, says Carolyn “was terrified” by the cameras. “She wasn’t used to it.” John tried to convince the press to back off. “He was nice but he was no pansy,” Cuomo says. “He was very comfortable with himself in confrontation — and sometimes the paparazzi, when they crossed the line, they knew it.”

Standing up for his wife came naturally to John. Says Murray, “It was important for him to be a good man to his friends, family, and those who came into his life — and from all accounts, he was successful.” — Lisa Chambers,

with reporting by Jaclyn Roth

“She loved him to bits.”

— Christiane Amanpour of

JFK Jr.’s mom, Jackie

“He felt like he had to do something significant,” says a former roommate. “He couldn’t just get a job.”

John wed Carolyn Bessette on Sept. 21, 1996. She and her sister died in a plane crash with John, 38, in 1999. Jackie, John Jr., JFK and Caroline in 1963